Drying characteristic, sustainability, and 4E (energy, exergy, and enviro-economic) analysis of dried date fruits using indirect solar-electric dryer: An experimental investigation

Tarik Hadibi, Djamel Mennouche, Abdelghani Boubekri, Samira Chouicha, Müslüm Arıcı, Wang Yunfeng, Li Ming and Fan Fang-ling

Renewable Energy, 2023, vol. 218, issue C

Abstract: An indirect solar-electric dryer (ISED) was constructed to valorize the date surplus under drying temperatures of T = 50–65 °C. The effective moisture diffusivity (Deff) values of dates were 4.59 × 10−7, 5.58 × 10−7, 7.29 × 10−7, and 1.04 × 10−6 m2 s−1, respectively, for 50, 55, 60, and 65 °C with convective mass transfer coefficient ranging between 9.18 × 10−7 and 2.08 × 10−6 m s−1. The drying behavior of date fruits using ISED was described by Wang and Singh's model with 99.98% alignment with experimental data. The lowest specific energy consumption (SEC) was 3.71 kWh.kg−1 resulting in T = 65 °C. The highest solar energy fraction (63.2%) and the lowest electric energy fraction (36.8%) were obtained under 60 °C drying temperature. The highest exergy efficiency (ηEx = 73%) was attained at 50 °C. The highest waste exergy ratio and the lowest sustainability index 0.39 and 2.54, respectively were obtained for T = 65 °C. The improvement potential factor increased with the decrease in ηEx and varied between 17.1 and 64.7. Low CO2 emissions amount of 17.23 kg/year was reached, and impressive payback period values of 0.26, 0.25, 0.12, and 0.08 years were estimated, respectively, for T = 50, 55, 60, and 65 °C. The ISED under 65 °C drying temperature is recommended for date fruits.

Keywords: Dates; Solar drying; 4E analysis; Sustainability; CO2 emissions; Payback period (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123012065
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:218:y:2023:i:c:s0960148123012065

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.119291

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().